**** DONE: GB-62 1/48 Spitfire Vc Trop - Spitfires

Thanks guys. I did a little more this afternoon concentrating on finishing off the nose area and wings. More chipping was done down to the base colours and I also tried to tone down the desert camo on the spine by over-spraying both colours with thinned down XF-88, since this area will be exposed. It still shows up very bright in the shop lighting.



The next applications on the rear of the fuselage are being run through my brain as we speak. I'm trying to apply logic where none may have existed at the time in trying to reconcile how the blue was and wasn't applied. Here's my thought process, much of it being conjecture:

BR301 arrives on board USS WASP in the then tropical scheme of Mid Stone/Dark Earth uppers and Sky Blue undersides
Orders are received resulting in all Spitfires on WASP having to receive a "Sea Scheme" camouflage
WASP is not a floating paint shop so orders are carried out to the extent reasonably possible with limited time, space, and materials.
BR301 is one of the last batch to be painted and receives dark blue uppers, probably thinly applied by brush. Wings are painted whilst standing on them and blue is applied around the existing roundels. Cowls can be painted after removal and are then replaced when paint is dry so the nose area appears darker than other areas.
Rear fuselage takes more time as the s/n and roundels need to be maintained. Time is running out so they say F! it and just paint blue patches before and after the roundels where the ferry markings have to go (3 or 4 plus a letter for Operation Bowery flights). The vertical stab was easy and managed to get the blue paint.
Ferry markings are applied to the blue patches and the plane makes it to Malta where 601 squadron removes or paints over the white ferry marks and applies the "UF-S" markings in white. The UF is to the left of the roundel on each side (my take is that the trace of the top left corner of the U can still be seen faded in the reference pic).
BR301 is transferred to 249 Squadron and retains the UF-S code for ops until at least July 24, 1942.
Between July 24 and 27, 1942, the "UF" is finally replaced with the 249 Squadron code "T" by painting over the "UF" with thin dark blue paint and applying the letter T in Medium Sea Grey. The white S is retained.
BR301 is damaged beyond repair 2 days later.

Unless someone can shoot a proven hole in my theory, that's what I'm going with. Now I have to get the sequence of paint and decals right.

I'm in.....do it

More to the point............................Who is going to prove you wrong.....................................With George...............................GO FOR IT!!

I can go for that.... Also looking good

Wow, I was scared by missing out on this amazing job... I'll add myself in the race
Excellent research and logical deduction .
Nice work Andy

Brilliant piece of research.

Liking this a lot Andy !

Thanks very much gents. Your comments and interest are much appreciated.

Progress is steady but slow as I need to work in a sequence that's taking a little time. The rear of the fuselage was gloss coated and allowed to cure for a day. Then I applied the decals, waited another day, then pealed the film off. Today, I gloss coated over the decals to make sure they are stable and secure as I want to mask around the roundels before applying the next round of blue.



The Mid Stone looks very yellow still but this is the shop lighting acting on it. While that was all drying, I flipped the model over and began weathering the underside with plenty of oil streaks, patchy paint, and dust. I also glued the gear legs on so that I could stand the model up without scuffing the paint.



More dabbling to come in the next few days and I'll post when there's something to show. Thanks again for looking in.

Coming along nicely Andy, it's looking good.

It's impressive the way these builds bring to life the planes in grainy photos. I would have never imagined that this is what these ferried planes really looked like. It's almost like a tropical fish!

Very nice work

Very kind guys, thanks

I gave the upper wing roundel decals ZERO chance of settling down around all the bulges underneath so took the initiative to just paint them. The sequence below shows the process, first cutting the Orimask vinyl masks using my circle cutter, placing the outer boundary down, spraying a white patch to allow the red to show better, applying the red, placing the center circle mask, then painting the blue.



The red looks a tad too red, despite my having mixed brown into it but, again, my shop lighting is making it look worse than it really is. Sun fading - yeah, that's it.

The next step was to complete the blue on the fuselage and this is where a lot of interpretation enters the equation. I figured that the aircraft was brush-painted in this area on board the WASP and so elected to leave some ragged edges on my masking tape to simulate hasty brush strokes.



I'm not sure I like it yet but went ahead and applied a gloss coat for the UF-S decals. The white "UF", once applied, will be once again covered in a thin blue coat before superimposing a letter T over the area.

Thanks again for the comments and see you soon.

Very nice looking roundels

Looks the canine accoutrements so far !

Nice work so far Andy!

Excellent !

She is really starting to look the part. Some extremely good stuff going on here.